


Lawn Ornaments

by AccioInvisibilityCloak



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Feuds, Strong Language, Utter Nonsense, flamingo theft, next door neighbors au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioInvisibilityCloak/pseuds/AccioInvisibilityCloak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrice Duke does not like the boy next door. She likes his taste in lawn decor even less. Something must be done. It's just too bad there's no city ordinance against hideous plastic lawn flamingos. (She knows. She looked it up.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lawn Ornaments

**Author's Note:**

> So this AU is based on a tumblr post of a list of neighborhood wi-fi networks where one was called "Give Back Our Fucking Flamingos" and another nearby network was called "Fuck Your Flamingos". Which of course led to a flamango adding to the post, saying someone should make a Beadick neighbors AU where Bea is always stealing Ben's flamingos. Back in November I started a oneshot about this just for fun, and then totally forgot about it- until now. This is unabashedly silly and probably a little OOC especially near the end. Universe where the events of NMTD never happened but the summer-they-were-14 thing did, and now all the characters don't know each other super well but live in a pair of small houses in a tiny college town, because I said so. So, yeah. This happened. Enjoy! :)
> 
> Quick warning for a slight alcohol mention and mentions of possible Claudio/Hero, although they're not together here at all.

Beatrice Duke was not happy.

 He’d actually gotten another one. Her no-good, _dickface_ of a neighbor had gotten _another_ fucking lawn ornament.

The weirdo already had one large, pink plastic flamingo sitting in his front yard being an eyesore, but now, a second flamingo stood facing the first one. The fake birds clashed horribly with the yellow and purple flowers they stood among- they clashed with everything on the street, to be honest. It was too bad there wasn’t some kind of city ordinance against giant garish lawn decorations that’d force the dickface to take them down. Beatrice knew this. She had already looked it up.

Beatrice had seen him put out the first one a few weeks ago, just after she’d moved in. She was living in a crappy little two-floor student house this year, with her cousin Hero and two other girls she’d gotten to know in classes last year. Hero was a year younger, but the others were in their third year of uni, like Bea.

And the house next door was also full of students- Pedro, an old friend from her childhood, and three other guys Bea didn’t really know, though she was pretty sure Hero had a class with one of them. She’d seen them coming and going from their place, of course, but hadn’t been introduced to Pedro’s friends yet.

Ukulele music drifted from the house at odd hours, the grass on their little patch of lawn was already thinning from all the time they spent kicking a football around, and an air of general irritating noise surrounded the place, especially on weekends. Bea had already been kept awake by at least one wild party over there so far this year (and the term had only been going for a couple weeks, _honestly_ ). Pedro was cool, but overall Beatrice could’ve imagined a better situation as far as neighbors went. They could have at least invited her!

The toy flamingo was something else though. One of Pedro’s roommates had come out to check the mail one day the other week, which Beatrice had noticed because her first-floor bedroom window looked right onto his porch, and she was sitting there staring out of it absently instead of doing homework.

She most definitely was _not_ staring at the guy,though, as he pulled a few envelopes out of his mailbox and looked around to see a large cardboard box sitting on the porch nearby. She _didn’t_ notice his flyaway dark hair or his Adventure Time t-shirt or the smile that suddenly lit up his face at the sight of the delivery. She didn’t see that he was tall and thin, didn’t examine his arms when he seized the box. In short, whether her new neighbor was extremely cute did not even enter her mind, and she really wasn’t even disappointed when Flamingo Guy promptly vanished back into his house.

She didn’t enjoy watching him leave either. Absolutely not. At _all_.

Of course, she didn’t start _calling_ him Flamingo Guy until after he came charging back out of the house carrying the monstrosity, still grinning like an overexcited three-year-old as he set up the thing’s wire legs and pushed them into the dirt in the center of the flowerbed.

A _flamingo_? What was he, eighty?

A sandy-haired boy (possibly the one Hero had that class with? Claude something?) stuck his head out of the house and shouted something she couldn’t quite hear. Beatrice recalled hoping the not-cute guy’s roommate was ordering Mister Birdbrain there to get rid of the evil lawn ornament.

But it stayed, forcing Beatrice to glare reproachfully at it every time she left the house. She’d complained to Hero about the flamingo several times, but all her cousin ever said was “I don’t think it’s so terrible, Bea. It isn’t hurting anyone. And we do have a garden gnome in _our_ yard after all.”

“Gnomes are _whimsical_ , Hero. Flamingos are annoying, ok? And so is that guy who put it there!” Bea would insist.

“Beatrice, you don’t have to love him or the flamingo, but at least try to be a pleasant neighbor, will you?” Hero reminded her. “Although, you do kind of talk about him a lot. Are you sure you don’t, _maybe_ kind of like him a little bit?”

“Hero. I am going to murder you right now.”

Apart from that, though, Beatrice always promised she would try to be civil. Which still didn’t stop her from listing off to Hero the many horrible qualities she was sure Flamingo Guy possessed, even if she’d only had a few interactions with him since they’d become neighbors.

There was the time she’d been running late, dashing out the door with her bag half-unzipped and her hair falling into her eyes, and had tripped on her own foot and fallen down the porch stairs, all her books and papers and things spilling out onto the pavement, and who should be walking by to witness her humiliating tumble?

 “You all right?” The dark-haired neighbor boy was standing there, laughing at her. This time his t-shirt featured a TARDIS design. In the midst of her discomfort and embarrassment, she suddenly thought he seemed oddly familiar to her, and not just because of the other day when she'd seen him with the flamingo.

She scowled up at him, scrambling to gather her stuff. “I’m fine.”

“I saw you fall,” he said, reaching out a hand to help her up. She ignored it.

“I did not fall,” Beatrice insisted. “I just… I… uh…”

“Wanted to get a closer look at the ground?” he teased, now kneeling to help her pick things off the pavement.

“Shut up,” she hissed, seizing the book he had picked up for her and hauling herself back to her feet.

 She was marching away, ignoring the pain of the many scrapes and bruises she’d just gotten, when he called after her.

“See you next fall, then,” he said, and she could still hear him laughing.

“You’re not funny!” she shouted back, hating him. So much for being neighborly.

 

Later that same week she’d spotted him in the library, when he’d accidentally met her eye and then promptly tripped on nothing and dropped all his own books. Beatrice had glared, knowing he was still making fun of her fall from before (though he _had_ hit himself in the foot with a massive hardback dictionary, so at least she got to watch him hopping around on one foot and visibly wincing in pain while attempting not to make any noise. Which was fun, until the part where the librarian had scolded her for laughing so loudly.)

Another time, Flamingo Guy had come over unannounced, and when Beatrice had looked out of the little window in the front door and seen who it was, she’d almost pretended no one was home- a ruse that was ruined when Hero heard him knocking and came to investigate. The cousins answered the door together.

“Oh, hi, I’m Ben, I live next door. This came to our house by mistake, so I thought I’d bring it by,” he explained, holding out an envelope.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Ben,” said Hero kindly. “I’m Hero, and this is Beatrice. You’re one of Claudio’s roommates, right? Tell him I said hello, will you?” she added.

 “Yeah, sure. I was disappointed, really,” he said with a cheeky grin, handing Bea the mail. “I was hoping there would be something actually for me in the mail today, you know?”

“Oh, like a friend for your lawn flamingo or something?” she’d blurted rudely, trying not to look at him too much in case he thought she was staring again. Which she definitely wasn’t, because he was _not_ even better-looking up close, she refused to even think it (and that accent? So not fair. She reminded herself firmly that he was the enemy. The enemy with the awful taste in lawn ornaments.) “Seriously, why do you even have that thing? It’s heinous!”

“Flamingos are incredibly majestic creatures, thank you very much,” he’d said, affronted, but completely serious. “And you’re welcome for the mail, ah… Beatrice.”

“Thanks,” Bea had grumbled, at a nudge from Hero, and Flamin- well, _Ben_ had left.

Hero had shot her a knowing look and traipsed away to her room, singing just loud enough for Bea to hear. _“I just adore him, so I can’t ignore him, the boy next door!”_

“I hate you so much,” said Bea, still glaring at the closed front door. “And I do _not_ adore him!”

She made a mental note to hide the _Meet Me in St. Louis_ DVD from Hero. Immediately.

                                                                                                                           ***

And now that awful flamingo actually had a twin, and they stood beak-to-beak in Birdbrain Ben’s yard next door, _laughing_ at her.

(Figuratively. She wasn’t _that_ far gone. Yet.)

Bea just bet that Ben was somewhere inside right now, all smug and cheery about his little joke. She wanted to wipe that silly smile right off his face, no matter how cute it was. Actually paying money for another one of those horrid things, just to piss her off? Unbelievable.

“All right, then, Flamingo Boy. This means _war_ ,” she hissed under her breath, and maybe it was the long, awful day she’d just had, or the alcohol she was now indulging in, or the fact that she’d had “The Boy Next Door” stuck in her head all fucking day (thanks a lot, Hero), but she couldn’t just stare out the window at the damn birds anymore.

It was probably a combination of all three of those things that led her to creep outside in the dead of night and do something completely reckless and foolish and, technically, illegal.

She stole them.

 

                      Bea didn’t _intend_ to steal the flamingos, not at first. She’d just been going over there to… well, she didn’t really know what was possessing her to sneak into her neighbors’ front yard and confront their lawn flamingos. There was never a plan exactly, just the impulse to kick one of the lawn ornaments over, the momentary terror that someone in the house had heard the terrific thud of her foot connecting with the thing and knocking it off its wire legs, and the reflex to cut and run which led, somehow, to her bolting back across to her house with a hunk of pink plastic bird under each arm.

And now they were just sitting there in the back of her closet, and there was nothing in the yard next door but footprints and trampled flowers, and she was _so_ busted.

Bird Boy was going to figure out it was her right away; no one else had expressed such loathing for his flamingos, no one that she knew of anyway. Actually, maybe someone had. She couldn’t be the only one on this block with any actual taste in lawn décor, right? And maybe he just wouldn’t notice the flamingos were gone. Maybe he’d just buy new ones and give the old ones up for lost. She didn’t have anything to worry about, she was sure.

                The next morning, at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. on a _Saturday_ , the doorbell rang. Bea was blissfully asleep, dreaming of living next door to Benedict Cumberbatch and how he would come over to borrow a cup of sugar and leave having fallen hopelessly in love with her. Before dream-Bea could follow after him, she was jolted awake by the twin buzzes of the doorbell and her cell phone.

A text from Hero: _Bea. Get the door. You’re closest_.

This was true, but it didn’t mean she should automatically have to answer it! What if it was a delivery for one of the other girls in the house? What if it was Claudio picking a really odd time to finally ask Hero out? What if it- oh _no_.

 _Anything but that, please_ , thought Bea, panicking as she remembered what she’d done last night. _Anyone but him_.

Her prayers were far from answered.

“ _You_. I know you took them, where are Floyd and Frieda?” demanded Ben as soon as Beatrice opened the door. _Damn_ it.

“Floyd and- what?” she spluttered, still a little sleep-fogged and confused.

“Floyd and Frieda. My garden flamingos, what did you do with them?” he said, and he looked so genuinely annoyed about their disappearance, his blue eyes wild, his hair messy and ruffled like he’d just rolled out of bed himself, that Beatrice couldn’t help it.

She burst out laughing. “Oh my god, you _named_ them? You are such a dork. _Floyd_ and _Frieda_ , are you serious?”

“Shut up,” he grumbled. “They’re good names- and that’s completely beside the point! You took them, I know it. The footprints in the flowerbed led right back to your yard!”

“I refuse to admit anything about your precious flamingos, so you might as well keep looking,” Beatrice said, trying and failing to suppress her giggles. Indignant and barely awake really was a good look for Bird Boy, she thought as he threw up his hands and turned to leave.

“If, hypothetically, I _had_ stolen your lawn ornaments,” Beatrice called after him, “I’ll tell them you said hi, dickface!”

“I knew it!” he shouted, but he was already halfway down the porch steps, and by the time he reached the door again, Beatrice had already slammed it shut.

                                                                                                                            ***

What followed was a very long few weeks that no one on their street would soon forget.

Ben’s strategy at first was to hound her about the flamingos whenever he saw her, but Bea would just ignore him, punctuating her haughty silence with a self-satisfied smirk or a glare depending on her mood. He had a weird way of being underfoot right when she least expected him. It was infuriating.

Luckily, they had different schedules, so she really didn’t run into Ben all that often, and after a while he stopped trying so hard to surprise her. Bea had started to be almost hopeful that he’d just forget about the stupid flamingos- until the afternoon when her wi-fi went out. She pulled up the list of area networks on her computer to do some troubleshooting and one wi-fi network caught her eye- “Give Back Our Fucking Flamingos”. The house next door.

Was he serious? This was his new strategy, taking to the internet to bother her? Please.

Not to be outdone, Beatrice grabbed her phone, Googled how to change a network’s name, and before long her newly renamed “Fuck Your Flamingos” network had re-connected to the Internet so she could get back to scrolling through her Twitter and Youtube inboxes. The other neighbors would have a laugh if their Internet went out, at least.

She had been mentioned in a tweet from an account called @flamingothief, with a header proclaiming that ‘Beatrice Duke is a Flamingo Thief’. “Come on, give them back already!” the tweet said. Pathetic.

Beatrice responded with one word. “Never!”

 

Nothing really happened the next day, feud-wise. A car alarm interrupted her filming a video, but she had no proof he’d had anything to do with it. He didn’t even know she was a vlogger- but now he would, because he’d followed her on Twitter for some reason (his actual account this time instead of the Flamingo Thief one). She just hoped he wouldn’t watch her stuff. She would never admit just how often she’d complained to her camera about the flamingo-obsessed guy next door.

(She didn’t know he’d been doing the exact same thing on his own YouTube channel lately, complaining to the Internet about his feud with the annoying girl next door, and updating them on his search for the missing Floyd and Frieda.)

The rest of that week was full of little incidents and mutual sabotage. Beatrice was walking past Ben’s house one morning as he watered the plants, and he “accidentally” sprayed her a little with the hose. She’d had to go back home and change, and then she was late to class because she had to think of a way to sneak to her car without Ben spotting her. She couldn’t believe him! So immature.

Beatrice got leaf-raking duty- and revenge- the next day. She raked all her leaves into the dickface’s yard, so he and his roommates would have twice the yard work later on, and shaped the leaf pile into something that resembled a cross between a flamingo and a certain rude hand gesture. Okay, so she could be immature too, what of it?

The next afternoon, Flamingo Boy dropped by to tell her that he’d received a package addressed to her by mistake again.

“That must be from my mum in Australia, give it to me!”

“You’re not going near it until I get my flamingos back!”

“Dickface!”

“Harpy!”

“Birdbrain!”

“Thief!”

She took extra satisfaction in slamming the door in his face after _that_ conversation.

                                                                                                                  ***

They had reached a stalemate. Beatrice wouldn’t give Ben the flamingos, and he refused to relinquish her care package, and all the glares and pranks and comments under their breaths when they passed each other on campus couldn’t bring a resolution to the impasse.

Then finally, three weeks after the whole flamingo war thing had started, something happened.

The storm came.

It was only three o’clock, much too early for this kind of darkness, thought Bea grumpily as she drove towards home. The sky had been blanketed in heavy grey clouds all day, yet somehow the rain had held out. It was an ominous sight, though, and Bea just hoped it wouldn’t start pouring until she was safely home.

She wanted that package. Mum had promised her cookies and packets of special tea like they’d always had when she lived with her parents, and by now the cookies were probably stale but she really wanted something warm like that tea to brighten up her afternoon. It was all _his_ fault she wouldn’t have any.

 _Stupid feud. Stupid flamingos. Stupid bird-obsessed boy next door_.

She couldn’t admit even to herself that the feud wasn’t the only reason she still stared out her window in the direction of his yard sometimes, wondering.

Anyway, she pulled up to the house and parked, seizing her bag and running for the door as the first drops of rain began to fall. Beatrice fumbled for her keys, coming up empty; she pounded on the locked door but the windows were all dark and no one answered her. The others were all out for the afternoon, who knew where, and she couldn't find her damn keys anywhere. 

 

She headed back down to the car to see if she left them on the seat or something- yes! There they were! Beatrice reached to open the car door and it was right as she was discovering her mistake that the rain elected to finally pour down in full force. Beatrice had locked her keys in her car, in the middle of a rainstorm that showed no signs of letting up. Within two minutes she was soaked to the skin. 

 

 _Fuck_ , she thought miserably, sinking down onto the stoop, her wet hair clinging to her face and neck, rain dripping unpleasantly down her back. A flash of lightning and a peal of thunder made her jump out of her skin, and she bumped her elbow on the step. Beatrice settled in under the tiny overhang on the porch, miserable, resigned to permanent dampness and hard concrete underneath her. This was going to be a long wait. At least the yard next door was still blissfully free of bright pink eyesores. The last thing she needed was a headache right now.

 

"Hey, Beatrice!"

 

At first she didn't even register whose voice it was, she was so relieved someone was there to get her out of this rain- 

"Oh, _perfect_ ," she said sarcastically upon realizing who exactly this lanky, equally drenched figure in front of her really was. "Of all the people to be stuck in the storm with, it had to be _you_. Just my luck."

 

"Sorry to be such a disappointment," Ben said, but he sounded more amused than offended. "And I'm not stuck in the storm. I was perfectly dry and warm in my house a minute ago, but I couldn't let you stay out here alone. How will I get Floyd and Frieda back if you get struck by lightning and die?"

 

"Ha ha ha," Beatrice deadpanned, but she followed him back to his place and scrambled inside. Anywhere was bound to be better than her swampy front steps, at least for now.

 

                                                                                                                              ***

  She'd spent more time than she liked to admit wondering what it was like in here, and she stopped to look around as Ben went off somewhere. Everything was paneled in old, dark wood, and there was a full coat rack and several pairs of shoes loafing around the entryway. Shivering, Bea moved forward into the living room. It was about as messy as you'd expect from a houseful of guys. She was careful not to touch anything, conscious of how she was dripping water all over the floor.

 

Ben reappeared momentarily with two fluffy white towels; handing one to Bea, he took the other to the dark hair that'd been clinging wetly to his forehead. Bea wrapped her own towel around her shaking shoulders and tried not to smile at the damp, tousled look of his hair post-toweling. He really was very nice-looking, she supposed, for a dickface neighbor guy- and then quickly banished the thought as she became aware of him staring bemusedly back at her. She blushed, bringing her own towel to her blonde locks, mostly to hide her face.

“Thank you for-”

“Some storm we’re hav-”

They spoke over each other, and the attempt at conversation ground to a halt. Bea stared at her shoes, scudding her sodden foot across the floor and watching the streak of rainwater it left behind on the wood.

 

               “So,” said Ben, his voice shaking slightly from the chill of the rain. “If you’re staying a while, shall I put on some tea?”

He started towards the kitchen as he spoke, and she followed him. He gestured to an open chair at a table strewn with papers, and she sat, suspicious but grateful for a dry place to wait out the rain.

“Oh, you’re going to start being nice now? Don’t think you’re fooling- oh my God,” Beatrice trailed off. She had spotted a name on the top of one of the papers, a typed essay or something. She knew that name. _Benedick Hobbes._

 The weird neighbor boy in question noticed what she was looking at and sighed.

“Yes, that’s my actual name, isn’t it hilarious? Go ahead, make fun of me, I’ve heard all the dick jokes before.” He sounded half irritated, half amused- like someone who’d dealt with this name problem a thousand times before.

She knew he had, too. She’d been one of those kids who’d teased him endlessly for his odd, old-fashioned, rather euphemistic name, years ago.

“Benedick,” she said, and there was no scorn in her voice at all, this time.

“Yes?” he asked with a smirk, probably relieved that she’d chosen not to emphasize the ‘dick’.

“No, I mean, you’re really… but you can’t be… it’s not exactly a common name, I mean…”

“Am I missing something, here?” Having put the kettle on, Ben sat down across from her, looking at her curiously, and finally she knew why he’d seemed so familiar before.

“Did you ever live in Auckland?” she asked, knowing the answer. “In the Messina area?”

“Yeah, when I was younger. Moved there when I was maybe twelve, thirteen? Why?”

“Did you… do you remember meeting a girl who was visiting there? You were about 14? Spent all summer together, and then she left without saying goodbye?”

Beatrice was kind of in shock, here. Awful, terrible, annoying, nemesis neighbor boy was the same Benedick from all those years ago? It was like some cosmic joke. After all this time…

“Oh my God! Bea! Wait, _Beatrice_?” he exclaimed, and she knew he’d recognized her, too.

“One and the same,” she offered him a small embarrassed smile. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize sooner- you were friends with Pedro back then, you live with him now, how did I not put that together?”

“Hey, I didn’t either, all this time I’ve been plotting against you,” he laughed. “Beatrice. I can’t believe it’s you!”

“I can’t believe I’ve had two mortal enemies in my life, and they turned out to be the same person!”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Ben said, his eyes darkening slightly, “why did you stop talking to me that summer? I… I kind of really missed you.”

“You were being a dick!” she blurted out, remembering how angry and hurt she’d been. “You didn’t want to be friends anymore, you said!”

“You’re the one who was being awful to me! You insulted me every time you saw me. Can you really blame me for thinking you must hate me? I thought you were my best friend, and then you just… weren’t.”

“I liked you,” Beatrice said softly, all thoughts of the flamingo feud forgotten.

“You… what?”

“I really liked you, Ben. I had such a crush- Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, just forget it.”

“I really liked you, too,” Benedick said seriously. “I just didn’t know I did. I didn’t mean to push you away. I was a clueless kid-”

“We both were,” Bea said. “It was my fault, too, you know. I’m sorry.”

They sat in silence for a moment, remembering. Finally, the quiet was too much for Bea. She had to know what he was thinking.

“What are the odds we end up next-door neighbors without realizing it?” she blurted, trying to get the conversation moving again.

“I know, it’s unbelievable! I was actually supposed to live in a different house this year, but Pedro convinced me to go in for this one with him and Claudio and Balthazar… hey, you don’t think…?”

“Wait, my friend Meg is the one who found our house, she told us Pedro recommended it to her! He did this on purpose, and- is that my care package?”

She had spotted the box on a counter, and got up to grab it, but suddenly, Ben was in front of her, a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“Don’t you dare! Not until I get Floyd and Frieda!”

“There’s tea in there, you know. Really really _good_ tea,” she told him teasingly, and before she knew it, the box was open on the table between them, and they each had mugs of the tea her mum had sent. Too easy.

“You really haven’t changed a bit, you know,” she smiled at him over the rim of her cup.

“I beg to differ,” Ben said indignantly.

“You have pet lawn flamingos named _Floyd_ and _Frieda_.”

“Okay, fair point. But I’m definitely not quite as much of an idiot as I was at fourteen.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not! For example, now I’m mature enough to admit that I find a lady who knows her way around a prank war to be extremely attractive.”

“Good for you,” Beatrice laughed. “But you’re going to have to do better than that to get your flamingos back, I’m not some easily-buttered-up damsel in rain-related distress.”

“Which I saved you from,” Ben pointed out. “And I gave you tea, and we’ve rekindled our lost friendship and everything! I think you owe me.”

“Please. You call this rekindled? I call it you stealing _my_   tea, us reminiscing, and you being terrible at hitting on me. However…”

“However?”

 _I can admit that I find flamingo freaks with British accents extremely attractive also_ , Beatrice thought to herself.

 Out loud, she said, “We can talk about the flamingos. A little more negotiation, and I might consider liberating them. That’s if I actually have them. You never know, there could be a lawn ornament theft ring operating in this neighborhood… of this tiny little town… where hardly anyone has lawn decorations even at the holidays…”

“What ever shall we do to bring down those terrible criminals?” said Benedick sarcastically. “Hey, speaking of wildly improbable yet awesome plots, Doctor Who is on. Care to join me?”

            It was still thundering outside, and Beatrice had no desire to get soaked through a second time, so instead, she allowed herself to be led back to the living room, and found herself curled up next to her old crush (okay, maybe also her _current_ crush), watching New Who reruns and cracking terrible jokes and enjoying their tea together. There was a large part of her that still hated Benedick with everything it had- but that didn’t change the fact that the rest of her was quite enjoying the feeling of having him close by, as they snuggled under a woolly old green blanket and watched the Doctor vanquish some monsters. This was actually really nice. Flamingo Boy was really nice. Maybe she should reconsider the whole 'mortal enemy' thing.

Eventually, Beatrice saw headlights in the window. Her cousin was home.

“I guess I should go,” she said reluctantly, disentangling herself from the blanket.

“Hero will be wondering about you,” agreed Benedick, also reluctantly.

Bea got up and started towards the door, then stopped. “Hey, so what are you doing tomorrow?”

“Well, I was planning Phase Three of Operation Flamingo Rescue for tomorrow, but…”

“Maybe I can help you with that. I need to free up some closet space, and your yard does look kind of bare without them.”

“So I can have them back?” he said hopefully.

“We’ll see,” said Beatrice, laughing. “You still have to make it up to me for spraying me with the hose like that, even if I’ve forgiven you for when we were fourteen.”

“You’re the one who left without saying goodbye!” Ben protested, but he was laughing too.

She crossed the room again and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Not a mistake I’ll be making again. Goodbye, Benedick.”

He beamed up at her, raising one hand to touch the place where her lips had grazed his skin. “So, tomorrow?”

“I can’t promise I’ll come back,” she smiled. “I’ve got that ring of flamingo thieves to run, you know.”

“Oh, you’ll be back,” said Ben ominously.

“Loser,” Beatrice called over her shoulder as she left.

“Says you!”

And Beatrice traipsed out the door, thinking that this could be the start of something wonderful.

 

          The rain had let up, and Hero was waiting for her out on the porch. “Ooh, making new friends?” she teased, then started to sing. “I just adore him, so I can’t ignore him…”

“Oh my God, stop!” Beatrice protested, laughing. “Wait until you hear what just-” 

And then she saw it- the empty space in the middle of their yard. No way.  Hero watched, bemused, as Beatrice took off running back to the boys’ house with a shout.

“Benedick Hobbes, you **_give me back my garden gnome_!** ”

**Author's Note:**

> And the feud goes on and the friendship develops and they end up together as always, the end.
> 
> Also, I feel like I should apologize for how much I don't know how seasons work. Leaving aside the whole seasons are opposite in the other hemisphere problem, what time of year involves both watering the plants and raking leaves? I don't know, I couldn't think of any things they could do to bug each other that didn't involve improbable yard work, I guess. Basically this is the fic where I forgot to care about making the setting fit. But hey, it's an AU, I can bend the rules of nature a little, right?


End file.
